This is important enough to warrant a separate discussion thread.

On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 01:45:46PM +0100, Thomas Adam wrote:
> Oh, and the point of a separate repo still stands, in my eyes.  You might
> think it moot, or even an unnecessary point, but I feel it's a very important
> one.  It reinforces (psychologically) that it's separate from fvwm2.  It
> reinforces that fvwm3 is discrete, and it reinforces the idea that it will
> become divergent from fvwm2 quite quickly.

First of all, for me personally there is no psychological issue.
I can think of the continued work to be all new regardless of
which mailing list its discussed on and where the repository is
located.  It may be different for others.

>From the point of view of the users and the people reading
fvwm-workers I am very sceptical.  We have already abandoned cvs
in favour of git, and as you can see, this has even further
reduced the number of old timers who have set up a development
environment.  I'd be very careful about sending yet another "we
don't want to have anything to do with the old stuff" message to
the world.

Switching to new infrastructure, we'll automatically lose some of
the people that are interested in fvwm development, be it that
they miss that the mailing lists have moved or that they won't
understand why there are two projects with the same name and which
to look at.  On the other hand:

 * Staying on the same mailing list:  Readers will notice over time
   that we're working on something new, that version 3 will be a
   more modern and radically different thing than version 2.  They
   may become interested in it or not, only time will tell.  There
   is no information hurdle they have to take to find out that
   something new is being done.

   Bugs reported for fvwm-2.x will still be relevant to fvwm-3.x
   for a long time (depends on the bugs).  We don't want to keep
   people from reporting bugs on the list because they might think
   the project is dead when it has just moved.

 * Switching git repository:  Given that the current amount of
   work going into version 2.x is very low, having both versions
   in the same repository is certainly manageable.  It's just more
   work for anybody who is interested in both repos (and getting
   access to github *is* very cumbersome compared to cvs access in
   the past).

 * Switching to a new web space:  This would make us the target of
   ridicule for years and cause musch confusion.  How would we
   explain that there are two distict web pages for the same project
   that differ only in version number?  It would just be
   inconvenient for everybody.  All right, we would have to place
   a big announcement on the web page with a link that points to the
   version 2 related sub pages, but I think with two different web
   pages we'd have to do it on both anyway.

 * With new infrastructure we'd run the risk that fvwm is kicked
   out of even more distributions.

So, is there maybe *another* way to foster enthusiasm about a new,
incompatible version?  Maybe we just need to do some "public
relations" work here.  A while ago you started a discussion about
a new logo contest.  Great idea, why not make it an event around
the official "fork" date.  I'd be happy to donate another prize.
We'd have something "new" practically from day one.  Maybe an Irc
"fvwm version 3" kickoff party where we explain our plans for the
future?

> It's not as if we're backporting features or fixes between the two.

Of course I'll continue backporting fixes like the recent ones in
event handling in the window management core.  This code is
changes at a very low pace, and backports are easily done.

> Copy---if it makes you feel any easier--- the entirety of the
> files from fvwm's master branch to new fvwm3 repository.  Do your
> work there, the set up is

Not at all, that would just greatly complicate things and confuse
people.  What use would two copies of the same code in deifferent
repositories be?

> Do your work there, the set up is
> easy.  Having a separate fvwm3 repository also allows to integrate anything we
> wish to the main fvwm website as well (when that becomes appropriate).

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

-- 

Dominik Vogt

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